The Commonwealth System of Higher Education is a statutory designation by the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that confers "state-related" status on four universities located within the state. The designation establishes the schools as an "instrumentality of the commonwealth"[1] and provides each university with annual, non-preferred[2] financial appropriations in exchange offering tuition discounts to students who are residents of Pennsylvania and a minority state-representation on each school's board of trustees. Legally, however, the universities remain separate and private entities, operating under their own charters, governed by independent boards of trustees, and with its assets under their own ownership and control, thereby retaining much of the freedom and individuality of private institutions, both administratively and academically.[3] It is the only public-private hybrid system of higher education in the United States that is so construed, although
Cornell University, the
University of Delaware, and
Rutgers University[4] represent alternative types of public-private university hybrids.[5]

Universities of the Commonwealth System are considered public universities by the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching because they offer reduced tuition for citizens of the Commonwealth and therefore are often referred to as "public" universities in publications, by the state, and the schools themselves. Because their annual state allocations that supplement less than 10% of their budgets, universities in the Commonwealth System tend to have higher tuition costs compared to the
Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education which contains 14 state-owned and operated universities. Because of their independence, universities in the Commonwealth System are exempt from Pennsylvania's Open Records law except for a few minor provisions.[6]

Contents

History

Before the creation of the "state-related" legal status in the 1960s, Lincoln University, Temple University, and University of Pittsburgh were fully private universities.[5] Temple and Pitt were granted state-related status by acts of Commonwealth's legislature in 1965 and 1966, respectively. Lincoln University, a
historically black university, was designated as a state-related university in 1972.[7]

Although the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) was founded as a private school, it was later designated as the Commonwealth's sole
land-grant institution. It was repeatedly defined as a "state-owned university" in numerous official acts and Pennsylvania Attorney General opinions from its creation as a land-grant, then named the Pennsylvania State College, in 1855. It was thus applicable to having its road system and buildings on state campuses constructed using state funding, paying its employees through state-issued checks, and having them eligible to collect state employee retirement system benefits.

Penn State was already treated and referred to as a public state-related university by the Commonwealth, including receiving non-preferred appropriations, when the other three universities were designated as state-related institutions by the legislature. In 1989, Penn State asserted a public status in court for the purpose of not having a private bank branch's operations on its University Park campus subject to local county taxes, while simultaneously asserting private status for the purpose of not having to reveal the salaries of its top administrative employees.[8] With the enabling legislation changing the failing Williamsport (PA) Area Community College to the affiliated "Pennsylvania College of Technology" in 1989, Penn State was reaffirmed as a "state-related" institution.

Universities

The following universities (listed with their branch and regional campuses) are members of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education